Tour de Romandie stage two will be shortened by 24.2 kilometers. To avoid a dangerous, potentially icy descent from the planned start in Champéry, the riders will be bused to Aigle for the official start. They will then race the rest of the stage, which remains unchanged. Stage two, which finishes in Bulle, will now be 136.5 kilometers long.

Team Sky looks back on Tour de Romandie stage one

Chris Froome was content to have safely finished fifth following an uphill sprint finish on a weather-hit first stage of the Tour de Romandie.

Michael Albasini (Orica-Scott) took the stage win following a bunch sprint on the uphill dash to Champéry following several late attacks in the final kilometres from a selective peloton group.

Froome finished strongly and was pleased with his display on a difficult day with weather conditions again playing a part.

He said: “It was more about being in the front end of things today and coming into the last couple of kilometres I felt I had a bit more to give. I was happy just to be up there and not to have lost any time and I’m thankful to have stayed dry for most of the stage otherwise it could have been quite a miserable day out there!"

Froome was full of praise for his teammates who kept him out of trouble on an often treacherous route with wildly fluctuating weather conditions. He added: “The guys rode really well and Gianni (Moscon) is looking really good, (David) Lopez was up there as well on the final climb and Pete (Kennaugh) too.

“It was a day for us to tick off before we get to the bigger days this weekend."

Chris Froome riding the Romandie Tour prologue time trial

BMC headed to Tour of Yorkshire

The team sent me this update:

BMC Racing Team will take six riders to the start line of the Tour de Yorkshire, beginning this Friday, 28 April.

“We have plenty of experience in Brent Bookwalter, Amaël Moinard, Joey Rosskopf and Manuel Quinziato, and two of our young guys, Floris Gerts and Miles Scotson, round out the roster. Unfortunately, we had to make a late decision to take Samuel Sánchez out of the team as he is still recovering from his Vuelta al Pais Vasco crash and we don’t want to push him too much,” Stewart explained.

“With the busy racing schedule at this time of year and a few riders out with injury or illness, we have made the decision to take six riders to the Tour de Yorkshire start line. Although we are a couple of riders less than most teams, I believe we are still capable of getting a good result with the strong riders in our team, whether that be stage wins or going for the General Classification. The last day is, in my opinion, the hardest stage we have ever had at the Tour de Yorkshire so this will be the crucial day for riders vying for the overall win.”

Bookwalter is looking forward to making his Tour de Yorkshire debut. “Somehow I've never had the chance to race in Great Britain so I'm really looking forward to lining up at Tour of Yorkshire. I've heard it's an action packed race with some of the most passionate fans and a course that can produce unpredictable racing, so I'm excited to be part of it. I was able to build some strong momentum through the Tour of the Alps and will look forward to continuing that trend in Yorkshire where we will have a strong team balance of youth and experience,” Bookwalter said.